


Draw on your skin, See it on mine

by JaceRMontague



Series: Sanvers Week 2017 [6]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Day 7, F/F, SanversWeek, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 15:03:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11293113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaceRMontague/pseuds/JaceRMontague
Summary: When you draw on your skin the ink appears on your soulmates and vice versa. In the rarest of cases, the strongest of bonds, physical feelings and emotions can be shared. Alex is fifteen when she realized she and her soulmate share the strongest of bonds and it only gets stronger as the years pass.





	Draw on your skin, See it on mine

* * *

Alex had found out at a young age that she and her soulmate had one of the rarest, strongest bonds possible.

  
If you drew on your skin, your soulmate would bare the same marks and vice versa, the marks only disappearing when they faded or were washed off by the person who had the actual ink on their skin. If a soulmate was injured the cuts, the bruises would appear on the other soulmate but none of the pain or the pouring blood would accompany them and the injuries would always disappear after a few hours, maybe a few days depending on the severity of the injuries.

  
Drawings would appear on Alex’s pale skin and in return Alex would write stories around the shaky illustrations. They’d use their skin; their arms mainly, because they were easy to write on, easy to see, to have conversations  Never revealing more than first names and vague locations, Alex found out her soulmate was from Nebraska, was called Maggie. And was a girl. Alex made sure that when she gave her name in response she let Maggie know that her real name was Alexandra so that Maggie would know that she was a girl too.

  
Maggie didn’t seem phased at the fact her soulmate was a girl and the two continued their tentative friendship, their conversations and stories on arms.

  
Sometimes cuts and bruises that looked like normal childhood bumps and bruises and sports injuries would appear on Alex’s arms and shins, the odd bruise appearing on her torso, across her ribs, almost every injury was accompanied by annotations, a little arrow pointing at the injury with how it happened labelling it, the torso injuries were almost exclusively soccer and hockey injuries, the exception of the odd playground fight because _I'm not white, they don’t like me here._

  
Alex was fifteen when she realised that she and Maggie shared one of the rarest, strongest bonds possible. They could feel one another’s pain, feel one another’s emotions, if the pain – and the emotions – were strong enough. It was just that nothing had been strong enough until then.

One night while Alex was sitting at dinner with her family - her mother and father and her adopted sister who still wasn’t quite adapted to earth, still didn’t know about the whole soulmate thing - she felt it  A pain tore through a chest followed by a rush of emotions, none of them good. There was fear, anger, loneliness. It was crushing. Alex paused her explanation of the atom research she was doing for class, her fork clattering onto her plate as she felt her chest her tighten, her heart break, as she felt Maggie’s heart shatter.

  
“Champ, what’s wrong? Alex?” Her father rushed as he moved from his seat at his daughter’s wide, worried eyes, placing his hands on her shoulders as he crouched in front of her while she gasped for breath.

  
“Maggie’s in trouble.” Alex managed to force out in a whisper.

Jeremiah pulled his daughter from her seat gently, tugging her down onto his lap as he sat on the floor, his back against a leg of the dining table as he cradled his eldest daughter who was surely too tall to be cradled like that but had never seemed smaller.

That night Eliza explained soulmates to Kara, explained to both of her daughters that it seemed that Alex and Maggie appeared to have one of the strongest soulmate connections that she had ever seen, had ever heard about.

It took two days for the crushing in Alex’s chest to ease even a little and she wondered what had caused this, what had hurt Maggie. It took another three days before Maggie answered Alex’s urgent scrawl asking if she was okay.

  
_My parents found out I’m gay._

  
It was the only reply Maggie gave, the words appearing on Alex’s palm, Maggie’s handwriting the neatest Alex had ever seen it.

  
Alex tried communicating with Maggie for months after, never getting a reply to any of the notes she left across her arms for Maggie to see.

  
The next time Maggie wrote on her palm was when Alex’s own pain had provoked Maggie into doing so.

  
Alex was certain that she’d never be okay again, was certain she’d lost pieces of her heart when it had broken, when two officers had knocked her front door and in full uniform and had taken their hats off when Alex had answered the door, a ripped tank over board shorts and sand still on her legs from where she’d gone surfing that morning. Alex wasn’t really sure what had happened after the officers had taken their hats off but she knew that Eliza had screamed, and Kara had cried, and she herself had stormed out of the house and back to the beach, surfing until long after the sun had faded that day, hoping to surf until the physical excursion made her pass out because the pain tearing through her body, her soul, was never going to let her sleep again.

  
When Alex had finally walked away from the waves she realised she couldn’t face returning to her house and so she lay down on the sand banks, watching the stars, letting herself cry for the first time that day.  
As she wiped away the tears roughly with the heel of her palms she spotted the ink that almost covered her palm.

  
_Alex, what’s wrong? Are you okay?_ In a black ink from where her thumb met her hand to a little onto her index finger. In a different ink was _I can feel your pain. It really hurts, Al. What’s wrong? Alex?_ In the first ink was _I’m sorry I went missing. I just couldn’t face anyone but this isn’t about me. I’m not writing about me. I need to know you’re okay. I’m here for you. You can talk to me. I won’t go missing again._

  
As Alex squinted at her hand reading the handwriting in the near dark more appeared, going across her wrist and up her arm.

  
_Alex, I need you to talk to me. I’m sorry I disappeared but I need to know you’re safe. This is scaring me. I miss you._

  
Alex contemplated not replying, staying on the beach and leaving Maggie to her own devices like Maggie had left Alex without answers but then she realised Maggie did tell Alex what was wrong, she just hadn’t elaborated or spoken to Alex since. And then Alex remembered how much it had hurt when Maggie hadn’t answered her and realised she couldn’t do the same to her soulmate and so she dragged herself to her feet, pulling the surfboard under her arm and crossing the beach to the decking of the house, picking up one of the many pens she’d left out there over the last few years.

  
_My dad died. Plane crash. I’m safe._

  
Her scrawl in red ink contrasted harshly with Maggie’s neat handwriting in black pen and – now that Alex could see it properly under the house lights – Indian ink.

  
_Are you sure you’re safe? I’m here for you_

  
By the time Kara had slipped out onto the roof to watch the stars and instead spotted her big sister sitting on the decking steps Alex’s arms were covered in red and black pen, her and Maggie having moved onto writing on their legs to continue their conversation, suddenly everything being spilled about Maggie being kicked out for being gay and Jeremiah being on a plane he shouldn’t have even been on but was because he’d missed the first plane to spend extra time with Alex, talking to his eldest and making time for her and her alone to make sure that she was okay and didn’t feel like she was being replaced or pushed out by Kara.

  
Alex looked up and spotted her sister on the roof, patting the space on the step next to her as a silent invite for her sister to join her. Kara nodded and stood, casually stepping off the roof and landing on the soft sand a little in front of Alex before sitting next to Alex who wrapped her arms around the blonde and pulled her close, soothing her sister the best she could.

  
“What’re you doing?” Kara asked, her voice quiet and shaking slightly as she held back tears.

“Talking to Maggie.”

“Did she feel your pain?”

Alex nodded as she wrote on her thigh, explaining that Kara was next to her, and she felt her chest ease a little momentarily as her sister’s face lit up for a second as Maggie’s handwriting decorated her thigh once more, greeting her sister.

Alex wasn’t sure when she finally fell asleep but she was still talking to Maggie when she did, her and Kara leaning against each other, propping each other up on the step.

  
It took a long, long time but the pain in Alex’s chest eased but she and Maggie spoke every day and they realised that it wasn’t just pain they shared, Maggie felt the joy Alex felt the first time she laughed after Jeremiah died, Alex felt the happiness Maggie felt when she managed to get a GSA set up in her school. They shared every feeling if it was powerful enough for years.

  
When Alex was twenty-seven, when she’d fought and killed a hellgrammite with his own hand, when she’d fought and killed Astra, when she’d let J’onn take the fall and the guilt was eating her from the inside out, she found herself with her hands wrapped in the DEO gym, beating a heavy bag for all it was worth and she spotted Maggie’s handwriting poking out from under the bandages on her left hand.

  
Alex tugged the bandage off with her teeth, reading the message on her hand before the bandage had hit the floor.

  
_I don’t know what kind of week you’re having but it seems really shitty and I know you said forever ago that you can’t tell me what you do for work but if it’s making you feel this awful maybe take a break? Cause this sucks. Are you okay, though? Seriously?_

Before Alex could find a pen to reply, more handwriting appeared on her hand.

_Also you need you wrap your hands better when you’re using a heavy bag._

Alex snorted and rolled her eyes before replying with an I’m fine, Maggie. Before she realised that Maggie knew she was using a heavy bag.

_How did you know that I’m using the bag?_

_I don’t know how I know? I just do. But I mean it. Your wrapping sucks. My knuckles ache._

_You can feel my injuries?_

There were a few minutes of silence as they both realised the implications of what was going on. The bond was getting stronger.

Before either could reply Alex felt her tongue burn with hot coffee, the pain was over in a flash, almost as if it hadn’t happened in the first place but the coffee on her breath let her know it had.

_Will you let your coffee cool down??? that hurt!!_

_I was testing the bond. You knew it was coffee._

_What does this mean?_

_It means you’re finally going to find out what decent food tastes like, Alex. From what you’ve told me your diet is awful_.

That night at her apartment Alex picked up a pen

_My work? My work is dangerous and I train a lot and get hurt a lot and I don’t want you to worry. Especially if this bond is getting stronger._

_How_ _hurt?_

_I heal fast._

_You’re avoiding the question_

_You’ll heal even faster cause you’re not really getting hurt? You’d just feel it how I felt the coffee right?_

_I don’t know. The bond is getting stronger. You’re still avoiding the question._

_It’s situational. Sometimes I won’t get hurt at all but other days I might get really hurt._

_Could you die?_

_I could die falling off my bike Maggie_

_So yes_

_No, I’m too good at my job to die_

_Because that’s not completely full of yourself_

Over the next year Maggie kept good on her word and Alex developed a taste for food that wasn’t ordered in from the pizzeria on the corner by her apartment, sometimes ordering in from the Mexican place a few blocks over because it sold food closest in taste to whatever Maggie cooked, and Alex kept good on her word not to die at work, she was, in fact too good at her job to die. Having Supergirl as her sister and on her six was helpful too.

  
On Alex’s first day off in as long as she could remember she watched as ink appeared on her arm

  
_You’re awfully calm for a Tuesday morning, Alex_

_I have a day off_

_Calm you is really relaxing, I don’t have to worry about you today do I?_

_You don’t have to worry about me any day Ma-_

_She was cut off by Maggie writing directly over Alex’s words_

_Yes I do, and even if I don’t have to, I worry about you anyway_

_I worry about you, too Maggie_

The conversation flowed for the rest of the day with Alex having a day off and Maggie having a quiet day at the precinct with only paperwork keeping her company.

  
The next day Alex was standing along side Kara, in the aftermath of an attack on the president, putting her sisters mind at rest that a missing Alien would be found, would be tracked down.

  
That’s when she spotted a woman in a leather jacket crouched over evidence on her crime scene, Alex headed straight over to the woman who stopped what she was doing and stood up as the redhead approached with a “Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing on my crime scene?”

The woman in the jacket with the beautiful eyes shot back with “Anyone ever tell you all you feds sound the same?” Her smirk showing off her dimples that Alex really, really had to stop paying attention to “It’s like you all watch the same bad movies together at Quantico.”

Alex had to hold back both the roll of her eyes and the impressed smirk that was about to reveal itself across her face, the woman was sharp, Alex admired that. 

Maggie was annoyed, almost angry even, Alex could feel it and made a note to talk to her as soon as she’d gotten this woman away from her damn crime scene.

“Who are you?” Alex asked, her voice almost accusatory.

“Detective Maggie Sawyer, NCPD Science Division. I handle all cases involving aliens and things that go bump in the night.” The brunette answered, holding her badge out for Alex to inspect. “Showed you mine, show me yours”

Maggie? Her Maggie? Alex glanced at the detective’s wrists hoping to see the ink from the conversation her and her soulmate had had that morning. At the lack of ink on the smaller woman’s wrist Alex pulled her own badge out of her pocket, changing it from her DEO credentials to her FBI ones before holding it out for the woman to look at.

“Alex Danvers, Secret Service. I’m sure you mean well detective,” Alex started as she slid her badge back into her pocket “but this is a federal crime scene. You’re contaminating my evidence.”

“I’m contaminating it? Your lackey over there is bagging charred carpet and crispy lino into the same Ziploc. I thought the Secret Service would pay closer attention to detail.”

“We have technology that makes your city PD lab look like an easy bake oven”

“Us dumb local cops would never deduce that the president’s assailant was either Kryptonian or Inferian. Both species have heat vision.”

“Thank you. We’ll take it from here.”

“The airports within my jurisdiction”

“Your jurisdiction ends where I say it does” Alex said, rolling her shoulders as she spoke.

Maggie tilted her head as she regarded Alex “See you around Danvers”

Maggie walked away and Alex watched for a second before turning around, walking away, shouting at the agent who was bagging evidence incorrectly on her way past.

On her way back to the DEO Alex took her suit jacket off, throwing it into the back seat of the government car she was driving. She pulled over when she saw a question across her arm.

_Alex, what’s your last name?_

_Danvers._

_Alex Danvers, Secret Service, rude to NCPD officers on runways by any chance?_

_Alex burst out laughing as she read her arm_

_That makes you Maggie Sawyer, NCPD Science Division, wind up merchant doesn’t it?_

_That would be me. Drinks tonight?_

_Yeah, Sawyer-_

_I know a place Danvers_


End file.
